Congratulations, @CarBarlos! So glad you got your housing FA confirmed. My kids loved Birnkrant and living in the “freshman quad” this year. I found a reddit thread that had the reply below that sounds about right:
"If you want AC, you’re stuck with Parkside. It’s socially dead; you’ll talk with the people in your suite and not many others. It’s mainly engineering students that don’t want to talk to you anyway. However, it does have the nicest amenities and a dining hall close by, but AC generally stops mattering after a month and starts mattering in the last month again, but then you just fan out the room (or pm for other advise with that lmao) It will be exceedingly difficult to get McCarthy without honors. When it comes to dorms, my ranking would be:
Birnkrant - Nicest of the dorms without AC. 24 hour starbucks on the first floor and a few meters away from the dining hall. Moderately social.
Pardee Tower - A bit further from everything. Relatively nice building with a great student lounge on the second floor, as well as a piano room if you’re interested. Good social scene if you get a fun group of people on your floor.
Marks Tower - Slightly downgraded Pardee. Slightly further from everything than Pardee, small study lounge so it’s best to use Pardee’s anyway, and laundry room is very small for such a big building.
Marks Hall - Downgraded Marks Tower but a better study lounge. Socially alright
Trojan Hall - Oldest of the freshman dorms. Pretty gross, study lounges suck, ant infestation sometimes. Do your best to avoid. Socially alright.
New North is generally the most social of the bunch and I wouldn’t live there either. Vomit in the bathroom because of sick partiers and consistent noise ruin it. If I were you, I would apply for housing with rankings based on that list. If you get one of the top three or even four, you’ll be fine. If you get Trojan Hall maybe try to reassign lol (many people did this year, many rooms were single people for a while). If you have any questions you could always pm me or something."
@CollegeOdyssey2001 Since you (and the Reddit repost) mentioned McCarthy, I was wondering if I am eligible to dorm there. Technically by USC I am considered a Honors student now, but I’m not the conventional scholarship finalist and I didn’t receive any of those huge presidential scholarship or the other ones. Yet when I go to USC’s housing website they vaguely say that any Honors student is eligible to apply there. You probably might not have the answer, but the premise of possibly having that opportunity intrigues me.
Hi @CarBarlos. For McCarthy, you need to be at least a Dean’s Scholar (one-quarter tuition) to be eligible, but then you are considered only after Presidential Scholars (one-half tuition) and higher (Trustees, Mork and Stamps) are accommodated. So if you did not interview in February (or receive Presidential through NMF scholarship), then I don’t think you are eligible for McCarthy. But don’t worry about that. My kids were eligible, but preferred to be in the freshman quad (Birnkrant, Marks Tower, Pardee) to be closer to where most of the first year students are.
One thing to be aware of: when my daughter went to choose housing preferences, Marks Tower did not show up as an option in the drop down menu. We checked with the housing people and they said that Marks Tower will not be an option for freshman housing in the fall (no idea why).
In terms of cost, I think if I remember correctly that the dorms mentioned in the freshman quad were the cost you’re allowed to choose if you pick a double. For some reason, the triples I think were a little more - I think the triples have two rooms - one for the beds and one for the desks so that might be why they are a little more. The suites I think were a bit more than the freshman quad dorms as well.
@CAtransplant I see where you’re coming from. Many room choices are missing from various housing locations. Like for Cale and Irani, there’s I think 6 room layouts in total, but I’m confined to two choices, and I know it’s not because space filled up because I created my account 15 minutes after it first went live on April 6th and they were missing then. I wonder why this is?
Oh and fortunately Marks Tower is an option this time around!
Right now, I’m leaning towards the Parkside International Tower (not the humanities one) since it’s closest to the Viterbi school of Engineering. I think in general I would want to be with others, but with my own space, with a kitchen ideally since I follow a very strict food diet. So I’m not necessarily looking for the traditional resident halls, nor apartments since I don’t have the independent maturity for that (what my mom is telling me lol), but rather the suite style ones. I feel like that’s too much to ask with a 4.9k limit, but I also have that additional 4.5k cushion from the Topping Scholarship, though I’d like to preserve as much as that as possible for books and mandatory programs.
Hi @CarBarlos. I think Parkside would work well for you given your preferences. Have you seen the Viterbi Voices site? On it, if you type “Parkside” in the search function, you will see a series of “My Freshman Dorm” reviews of Parkside. (You can also do this for other housing options you are considering.) Here is one, for example to get you started that summarizes good reasons for you to select Parkside…
@googlimoogli Yes… I believe that all admits, fall and spring, were included in the circa 9500 total. And I therefore believe that they projected a lower yied rate to still try and end up with 3000-3250 or so enrolled overall for this new freshman class. Time will tell how that projection works out. This is all clearly unprecedented given all that is occurring this cycle.
@ElenaParent I do not recall when they actually post those. Usually, the first indication is when the new freshman profile is published… so likely not until the early Fall, maybe September-October. But again, this year is different, so maybe they will change that too.
@CarBarlos As for housing, while you have described it as a cost limit, you are not really limited in your selection. It sounds like they have projected a cost estimate for you and applied certain credits via grants and other aid. But, you can still select whichever room or board options you prefer. If you spend more, it will simply cost your family more in the long run. If you spend less, it will be to your financial advantage. During the past six years, I have never seen FA actually make any adjustments to aid based on real world expenditures versus their initial estimates of total costs. Many, for example, spend less on books, misc costs, etc. Many spend more on travel or other elements. But, everything at the top of the FA summary are estimates based on average costs for USC incoming students… and not itemizations or limits based on you specifically. Good luck with your choices.
This was part of an email that went out a couple on the 28th. Still working towards in person fall classes YAY!
Summer Sessions 1 & 2
Several weeks ago we announced we would continue remote learning for Summer Session 1 (May 20 – June 30). Given the uncertainty of when stay-at-home orders will be lifted, we are now announcing that all Summer Session 2 courses (July 1 – August 11), and all related in-person activities, will be conducted online.
The grading policy for the summer sessions will revert to those used prior to the Spring 2020 semester; that is, students can elect the grade options normally available for the course and follow the regular deadlines to make their elections.
Planning for Fall 2020
We are deep into planning for a safe and appropriate return to campus of faculty, staff, research, graduate and professional, and undergraduate programs. To do so, we must take into account how best to test for the virus, contact trace, and physically separate those who come back to campus. We are focused on returning to activities in clinical care and clinical education, research, teaching, learning, and creative and athletic experiences that recognize the risks of the spread of the disease. All of this forward planning is being done with the full recognition that what we do at USC forms the foundation for successful lives and careers, and is the basis of a strong civil society. We will provide additional details on what we are calling “Project Restart” in the coming weeks and hope to announce our plans for the fall semester in the next two months, with the understanding that circumstances remain in flux.
New USC President Carol Folt gave her first annual State of the University address via Zoom. According to this Daily Trojan article, she stated, among other things: ‘“Our teams are actively exploring options, including delaying the start of on-campus classes by several weeks, retrofitting our facilities for social distancing and pursuing hybrid models that include online and in-person activities in all classes,” Folt said. “We plan to decide about that in the next two months. We appreciate your patience, and we will keep you closely informed.”’
You can read the whole article about her address here:
I hope they are back in the fall one way or another and glad they aren’t just pulling the switch to all online. That would blow. Sounds like they are doing all they can to have the on campus experience. If anyone can overhaul a system quickly and impressively, it’s USC.
I didn’t get TTP, but am interested in transfering to USC after my first year. Does anybody know who I should get in contact with to plan out courses I need to take freshman year to put me in a good position?
The website has all kinds of info on how to transfer and there are very active transfer threads on here. USC does not offer advising for transfer prospects unless they are part of TTP. And they generally don’t tell TTP which specific classes To take as much as types of classes to take. Simply not the resources to do that. But the info on the USC transfer site is very thorough.
@CADREAMIN Thanks for this link. Glad to hear they’re moving toward making in-person learning a possibility. I like the idea of delaying a bit - give LA county a little more time to move toward the fourth phase. Still hopeful. Also, I heard that Stanford was considering not starting til January - and then going through summer to make up the Spring semester. Not sure how that would work going forward…
Hello Everyone! Does anyone how to contact their admissions counselor? We’ve been to the “find your counselor” page and you click in the name of your HS, and the counselor name comes up, but not a hyperlink to contact them and no other information. Thanks for any insight!
@VivienL we talked about that way back about a month ago on this thread - did your daughter get an email from her counselor in the beginning of April? Ours came on April 2.
Congrats to all of you admitted to USC! My D was rejected — stings a bit more knowing USC admitted 16% this year compared to 11% last year. But all of you future Trojans, you should feel proud that admissions saw something special in you. My D had high stats 36 ACT/4.0 gpa unweighted, sports, plus extracurricular, job, volunteering, community involvement, etc. related to her passions, but was rejected by Viterbi. D was disappointed bc she fell in love with USC during campus visit last summer. A classmate of hers with lower stats and minimal involvement was admitted for spring. That also made the rejection sting a bit more. D would have happily accepted a spring admission. For all the future USC applicants, don’t write yourself off bc you think your grades aren’t high enough or you don’t have enough extracurriculars. Go for it. Good luck to the class of 2024.